Supaned

Sorry to read that - I've had a lot of stuff from Model Junction over the years.

I think the staff issues and percieved attitudes stem from several factors. There's still an element of BR and it's immediate successors "f@8k 'em" attitude amongst some members of staff (although I should point out that does not mean all ex BR staff and by the same token , staff employed in more recent times can be just as bad) - as they can't necessarily be removed from their postions, this issue will only go away over time - if they are assessed as competant in their particular roles they can't really be dismissed unless there are correct legal grounds, having a "bad" attitude not being one of them. Industrial relations are a very contentious issue - ultimately the staff side want the most money for the least work , the management side want the most work for the least money , and in an ideal world compromises could be reached, but sadly this is rarely the case. Some TOCs have "sold" their more restrictive ex BR conditions , giving the employers more flexibility in terms of rostering , commitment to sunday working etc , the key thing being that these things were negotiated and not imposed , and ultimately it costs money to achieve , so if TOCs (and by extension the DfT) won't pay for those things , this is one of the reasons that some TOCs cannot run their timetabled sunday services , because drivers or guards still retain their old BR conditons where sundays are not mandatory to work and the staff member can simply state they are "not available" for duty. I think many staff are aware that we live in a 7 day society now , but as I said , they aren't going to freely give up such a condition , especiaily when you consider the situation on TOCs where sundays are either part of the working week or committed , where drivers will find it diffcult to get a day off on a sunday for an event such as a family gathering (yes, the railways are indeed a public service , but the people operating them have lives and families outside of work too , which sometimes is overlooked). The DOO situation is equally complex , and as can be seen from above , removing guards will still not fix the issue of no traincrew if there are insufficient drivers or for example none want to work a certain sunday. The adversial approach to industrial relations is achieving nothing. Granted both sides of the debate need to be more realistic on some matters but both seem to be so entrenched it's hard to see a way forwards sometimes. Obviously the Unions and staff are a popular target for the media (and those who clearly believe what they read from the media) , the reality is very different.

And it is a very similar situation with a TOC that I am very familiar with. On paper there are 150 drivers available across 4 links. Each link has certain route or traction requirements , meaning that in Link 1 only 60 drivers on paper can cover every job. At present the depot has 13 vacancies , meaning that even before sickness , leave , chain of care , training etc, that many lines of work have to be covered - this in turn automatically eats up any spare capacity built into the headcount . There are presently 7 trainee drivers in progress , however these will not be fully quaified to work on their own much before the middle of 2020 due to the route learning and traction training they have to undertake once passed out. Likewise, if a driver transfers from another TOC , their training period is longer and it is often several months before they are fully trained to do the work in their respective link , so even employing 15 qualified drivers does not fix the problem overnight. Another issue which most TOCs are facing is that there is currently a group of drivers of a certain age who were all trained at the same time under BR, who are now nearing retirement age and in many cases are electing to leave the industry earlier than age 65 which previously was the norm. There seems to be no rolling plan in place to continually replace these crew as they retire , and as alluded to elsewhere in this thread , as cost cutting and headcounts are now key it seems , there is no appetite for carrying any sort of surplus of men. Furthermore , as seems to be common across the industry , diagrams have been tightened up to extract the maximum percieved efficiency out of the workforce , with little margin for late running etc which then merely exports delays around the network as a result, Also , the TOC in question has a maximum agreed working day length of 10 hours , and many of the new diagrams are close to that time limit , which combined with the lack of spare cover means that drivers are working far longer hours per week than any average link calculation , bearing in mind that spare turns are 8h45 in length , and regardless of 4 or 5 day week shift pattern , so tired crews are electing to not work any rest days or overtime simply to try to recharge the batteries - it's a viscious circle in that there's a shortage of crews , but the crews they do have are being worked harder and longer and something has to give. I also suspect that as the fines for cancelling a train for a lack of driver are far less than the cost of employing a driver , the TOCs really don't worry too much about it - perhaps something that could be looked at by the powers that be to make such a thing less attractive to do? Obviously the festive period will have a greater proportion of staff not wanting to work overtime to be able to spend time with families etc , it seems this festive period has served to show up just how few staff there actually are running the trains and how much the industry does rely on goodwill and overtime - and one final thought on the matter of goodwill , only a few weeks ago West Midlands were more than happy to throw the guard grade away on the altar of DOO , so perhaps is it any wonder that those same staff are far less inclined to work overtime as a result?

Maly Zlata?

I've been watching JRJ for some time now , I agree the presenting sometimes is a bit lacking but I watch it primarily for the subject matter - it gave me a few ideas before I visited Japan , and now, having been , I do have a greater interest in the railways there . Working in the rail industry , I do find the reports on how they do that side of things to be particularly interesting. I see it as a decent bit of entertainment , there aren't many other TV programs dedicated to railways that are like it.

The odd one still went through to Portsmouth, I can remember one turning up vice Voyager one afternoon,

Bob, The class 90 and DVT set was a hire-in to cover for a 221 that hit a car on a crossing near York and was out of traffic for a long period awaiting repair, The diagram was ECS from Crewe CS to New St, then Manchester and back , round the houses ECS via Aston , Manchester and back , round the houses ECS via Aston , Manchester and back then ECS to Crewe CS. There was a single occasion where the set was used on a Newcastle turn with a 57/3 as Derby men had also learnt them , this job came back to New St then went ECS to Crewe CS with the 57 light back to New St. Occasionally a 57 got turned out if there was an issue with the 90 or DVT , the regular DVT had a poor set of batteries and used to de-configure the TDM quite frequently. As far as 158s go, I thought Virgin had 158747-158751? They started on the Edinburgh- Liverpool/Manchester-Birmingham-Portsmouth circuit as stated , but later on ended up on the Swindons.

Slightly OT , but similar notices are on the rear of some Hindustan Ambassadors in India - presumably the originals had poor brakes, now they must have ABS or servos and similar , as they claim "Power Brake - Keep Distance"

I'm visiting the family this week (who live in Grand Madieu). We visited the Gond Pontouvre retail park (mainly because there's a very good beer warehouse there). Infer scrap merchants are still taking in locomotives from SNCF, there were 2 rows awaiting disposal , mainly Y type shunters although there were some BB63500s and 2 BB67400s.

Err. That's a TASS Balise (and yes , that it what it is called) , which has stored data used to determine the Tilt Authority and Speed Supervision (TASS) for Classes 221 and 390 to use tilt operation

I don't think XC necessarily want rid of the Leicester/Notts stoppers , more a case of local authorities wishlisting train services along with certain TOCs fishing for work. The stopping services concerned both form longer distance trains as part or their diagrams , the Notts stoppers forming a Cardiff upon turnround at Notts and the Leicester terminator forming a Stansted at New Street, There could be a case for re-connecting the New St - Leicester stopper to the Leicester - Lincoln , which could certainly be achieved without any investment in infrastructure, but going back to the days of Central Trains is not necessarily a good thing , in their latter days the service was farcical with late running , and indeed since the timetable change I'd suggest LNW/WMT concentrate on running and staffing their current published timetable before taking on any more work.

Haven't they since built a housing estate on the site of Nuneaton shed , making a dive under the WCML even more difficult? It has to be asked though , is there really that great a demand for through travel from Coventry to Leicester and points beyond? If there was genuine statistical evidence in terms of ticket sales (I wouldn't count a passenger survey as that isn't necessarily a true reflection of journey intent) then fair enough but I'd be very surprised if this was the case. Certainly when I pass through Nuneaton I can't say as there are many dozens of people connecting between the Coventry and Leicester trains with any regularity. I really can't see how they can achieve the manoeuvre they want without a reversal or a horrendously expensive and intrusive flyover , and again , I'd make the point , for what actual benefit.

so how common were EM1s at Ashton Moss?

On a related matter , it has been interesting on my travels watching the various methods of work used for attaching locos to trains. For example , in at least Germany and the Czech Republic , diesel locos are shut down , and electrics drop the pantograph prior to the shunter going in between, The shunter gives the driver his ID tag , and the driver gives him the loco key, thus providing a measure of safety , and they are only returned when the task is completed. In the US, many freight railroads use the "3 step" process, where the loco brake is destroyed, reverser key removed and generator field CB tripped , so that again the loco cannot be moved whilst staff are between vehicles. For passenger trains , because the ETH connections have to in effect be connected by a fitter "carman" , they use a blue flag or light to provide extra warning that staff are working on or around vehicles (same as a NOT TO BE MOVED board in the UK). I've also seen some hair raising things , although learning about the Berne square makes them perhaps less so , that said, I remember watching some hump shunting in Austria where the shunter has to place hemschuh (effectively a metal scotch that fits over the railhead and slides along it) in front of moving vehicles in order to manually retard them, the only wagons that were treated differently were tankers where the shunter rode on the platform at one end applying the handbrake as necessary.

Also announced at the Springfield show from Atlas : ACF 5250 4 bay Centerflow covered hoppers 89' Multi Max Autorack cars - these are the newest version which can be adjusted internally for either 2 or 3 levels.

Thanks for all that info gents

Having just started to work on the Cardiff route , the pic of the Brickyard sidings is particularly interesting as we have to shunt to there regularly, Does anyone have any more pics of the yard in it's former use or further details of the trains that used it? Was it only ever worked by an 08 , or did main line locos get in there too?

Whilst it is just paint and good commercial sense for the owners of the locos , I find it ironic given the fuss over 50007 and green paint.

Kato have just announced Viewliner 2 Baggage cars (pretty much an essential for present Amtrak operations) : https://www.katousa.com/N/Amfleet/index.html https://www.katousa.com/N/Amfleet/156-0955.jpg

I bought a copy of said poster from the DB Museum in Nurnberg last time I visited. Admittedly a few years ago , but they certainly were selling them.

You did well to get in - normally all I've seen is what is visible from the line as the train passes by. Back in BKK next month so hoping for some more GEK action :-)

There is a chord from the Eastern line that heads towards Bang Sue , normally freight only , but a set of points would soon solve that. If you take an Eastern Line train out of Bangkok, the triangle is just before Phayathai - what looks like double track is actually two single lines with the line towards Bang Sue being on the left as you head into Phayathai. I presume SRT will have to do something to maintain access to Makkasan works as well.

Funnily enough I had been looking at that Tmf 2/2 wondering about chassis.... And in an equally coincidental turn of events , a Kato GE 4/4ii is on it's way in the post..... I do like the modular idea too.

I told you so....

Well done. Will that be in it's CNJ guise or the more usual? Have to say I like the CNJ look.